


Ambling Shambler

by Lil-Ol-Cricket-Bug (LoxleyAndBagell)



Series: College AU [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: College AU, Crack, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:20:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoxleyAndBagell/pseuds/Lil-Ol-Cricket-Bug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where it’s the weekend before the first day of college, Jehan gets wasted and climbs a tree, Combeferre is very worried, and Joly and Laigle are amazing hosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambling Shambler

It was nearly midnight, and they were halfway through A Chorus Line when they heard an anxious call of “Joly! Joly, are you there?” through the open window. Laigle hit pause while Joly boosted himself up and went to peer through the screen. 

“Combeferre?” he called back, a smile in his voice. “Is everything all right? Oh, you haven’t met my roommate!”

He gestured excitedly for Laigle, who rose himself and looked out to see a short and stout figure standing in the grass below their window, the moon light reflecting off their spectacles. He waved shyly, calling “hello,” then halted when he heard a rustle in the tree that grew just in front of the window.

Joly must not have heard the noise, for he barreled on. “This is Jean-Benigne Laigle, my roommate and a poly-sci student. Laigle, this is Roland Combeferre. We met at the pre-med students’ lunch today.”

“Charmed,” said Combeferre, slightly strained. “Ah, I may need to ask a favor of you two.”

“Ask away!” called Laigle.

“It’s, well,” Combeferre doddered, anxiously fiddling with his hands. “Me and my friend, Jean Prouvaire here, we went to that party off campus, and he’s very sick, so I said I’d take him back to campus, but I haven’t the faintest idea where his room is, but he said he lived in your building, and I’m sure it’s a long shot, but you wouldn’t happen to know where—“

“Wait a minute,” Joly cut him off. “What friend? Where are they?”

“Jean Prouvaire, he’s right… oh fuck,” Combeferre’s voice dropped to a shrill whisper as he whirled around to see himself alone. “Prouvaire?” He called anxiously into the dark. “Where the hell… oh no.”

As the student below panicked, Laigle heard the rustling in the tree again, this time, coming from just below the window. As the individual scrapes of clothes against bark and creaks of branches supporting weight grew clearer, so did the dark shadow of a lean and spidery figure lazily hauling itself up the trunk, its back to the room’s inhabitants.

“Hello!” called Laigle once he was certain it was, in fact, a human and not a massive lemur.

The shape went still and turned its head slightly, just enough to sleepily regard Laigle with one bloodshot eye. As it swung itself to sit upon a branch, Joly ran to hit the lights in the room. As the excess light shone through the window, Laigle could see that the branch was supporting another boy their age, long-nosed and spotty, with lank curls pushed back clumsily with a thin elastic headband, a Hawaiian tee-shirt designed for a shorter, broader person, and a pair of jeans that had been chopped away at the knees without being hemmed again, leaving a row of pale fringe. His feet were bare, and with the extra light, Laigle could see a pair of beach shoes that had seen better days years ago lying carelessly on the ground, just on the other side of where Combeferre stood by the tree trunk.

He blinked lazily as the light dazzled him, long cow-like lashes dusting his cheeks, a neutral sweetness in his expression.

“Hello,” Laigle repeated, trying to sound as though he wasn’t mortally afraid this boy would fall and break his neck his first night at uni. “You must be Jean Prouvaire. I’m Laigle.”

After squinting at him for a minute, Prouvaire frowned sadly and shook his head. “What sort?”

Laigle was careful to not let his smile falter. “What do you mean?”

In his ear, Joly whispered, “I’m going to ask the R.A if there’s a ladder anywhere.”

He was careful to keep his eyes on Prouvaire, his expression easy and open, while Joly scurried out of the room. Unperturbed, Prouvaire explained in a sleepy voice, “I don’t know my eagles as well as I should, I only know bald eagles, but you can’t be one.”

Ah. This terrible pun again. “Is that so?” Laigle inquired, curious.

“That so,” Prouvaire nodded, earnestly. “That very so. ‘Bald’ from ‘piebald,’ you see, and—“

“I’m more ‘pie’ than ‘bald,’” Laigle finished for him, amused.

Prouvaire looked delighted. “Uh-huh.”

Laigle heard the door open behind him. “Well, we could go with the other meaning of ‘bald,’” he suggested, running a hand over his head, pushing back the hair he had to reveal more of his exaggerated receding hairline, but Prouvaire wrinkled his nose, dissatisfied.

“Of course we can’t,” he insisted. “You’re thinning, and there’s no such thing as a Thinning Eagle. Not that I know of, anyway.”

Behind Laigle, Joly sputtered an undignified, guffawing laugh, making Prouvaire blink in surprise.

“I, ah,” Joly managed to gasp out between giggles, “the R.A is out. Hello, Prouvaire. I’m Joly.”

Prouvaire cast his eyes down thoughtfully for a minute before looking up apologetically at Joly. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of any puns for that.”

That’s it for both Laigle and Joly. Once the initial astonishment has passed, they explode with laughter, and they barely hear Combeferre call up nervously, “don’t worry, you’ll think of something in the morning when you’re feeling better, Prouvaire. Now, won’t you climb down?”

Prouvaire paid no heed to Combeferre, instead brightly saying, “you’re watching A Chorus Line!”

“Uh-huh,” Joly hiccuped.

“You can watch, if you like,” Laigle managed, calming down. “We’re in the middle, but we can go back to the beginning if you want to watch with us.”

Prouvaire smiled like he had been told all of the puppies in the world were just outside his door and were very eager to play with him.

“Roland, can I?” he called down to Combeferre.

Combeferre made a pained noise, and called up in a strained voice, “yes, yes, just climb on down and we’ll go upstairs to their room and—“

“No need!” Prouvaire interrupted, voice bright. “They’re right here, I can just—“

Joly and Laigle exchanged a look, suddenly sober, and hastily began to undo push out the screen.

“Holy fuck,” Combeferre squeaks, then calls up, “no, really, I wouldn’t recommend that, Prouvaire, you might fall.”

“I won’t! It’ll be fine!”

As Laigle pushed the springs at the top of the screen, Joly pushed the dresser out of the way of the window and began dragging Laigle’s bed to where it had once stood, both of them cursing under their breath.

“Prouvaire, if you fall, I won’t be able to catch you, please come down and use the stairs.”

“But I’ve already climbed the tree! And you won’t need to catch me, I’ve had to catch Babou from higher places than this, this is nothing!”

Combeferre was momentarily stunned, halting in his worried tirade long enough to ask, “who’s Babou?” before hearing Laigle shout down to him, “catch!” and finding himself with an armful of screen.

Combeferre looked up long enough to see Prouvaire serenely positioning himself to a squatting position on his branch, and had enough time to squawk out a “Nonononono” before the lanky student launched himself into the window.

He heard nothing for a while, and after four seconds of silence he called up, “is everyone alright?”

A heartbeat later, Prouvaire stuck his head out the window, eyes wide and apologetic. “I lost my shoes.”

Combeferre practically deflated, too relieved to even fully register Joly and Laigle’s poorly concealed laughter.

“They’re right here,” he called up, tucking the screen under his left arm and pointing to the discarded shoes with his right. “I’ll bring them right up.”

Prouvaire smiled gratefully and called down a “thank you” before tucking his head back in, soon replaced by Joly.

“I’ll come down and open the door for you,” he says. “Unless you want to climb, too?”

“I’ll take a pass,” assured Combferre. “Is he all right?”

“Of course, he landed on Laigle’s bed. It was very gracefully done.”

“I’m sure it was. I’ll see you in a moment, then. Thank you so much.”

Joly laughs and waves him off before disappearing back into the room, and as Combeferre rounds the corner to the front door, he hears Prouvaire’s voice asking, “so, if I have my panpipes, is it acceptable to politely exchange the singalong for a playalong? This is probably hypothetical.”


End file.
